Republic Of Congo

BRAZZAVILLE, Republic of Congo - A rogue militia loyal to the Republic of Congo's former prime minister has launched new attacks west of the capital, a government spokesman said Friday. The Ninja militia, linked to ex-Prime Minister Bernard Kolelas, has attacked soldiers and civilians in the towns of Nkayi and Dolisie, about 150 miles west of Brazzaville, said Francois Ibovi, a spokesman for President Denis Sassou-Nguesso. Ibovi accused Kolelas and former President Pascal Lissouba of hatching a ``criminal plot'' to destabilize the Central African country, which neighbors larger Congo, formerly known as Zaire.

CONGO GOMA -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton toured an African refugee camp Tuesday crowded with victims of violence and malnutrition, pledging $17 million in American aid to help stem the tide of rampant sexual abuse that has staggered war-ravaged eastern Congo. Clinton's voice cracked with emotion as she described an epidemic of rapes that has convulsed the Congo over 10 years of internecine conflict. "We say to the world that those who attack civilian populations using systematic rape are guilty of crimes against humanity," she said.

BRAZZAVILLE, Republic of Congo - Rebels in the Republic of Congo have abducted seven European forestry workers, a rebel leader said Sunday. Paul Mouleri, leader of the National Movement for the Liberation of Congo, said in a pirate radio broadcast that the five Frenchmen, a Dane and a German had been held for several days at Dolisie, 115 miles southwest of the capital, Brazzaville. Although the captives work for the German-owned Congolese Timber Co., Mouleri said they were being held to protest France's alleged involvement in the civil war on the side of President Denis Sassou-Nguesso's government.

GOMA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO -- About 50,000 Congolese appear to have left refugee camps and settlements near the town of Rutshuru in eastern Congo, the U.N. refugee agency said Friday. Several aid agencies have told the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees that three camps and makeshift settlements are empty, UNHCR spokesman Karl Steinacker said in Goma. Some aid workers told UNHCR the people were forced out of the camps by rebels led by renegade general Laurent Nkunda, he said. The Rutshuru area, 55 miles north of Goma, is now under the control of the rebels.

KINSHASA, Congo -- A U.N.-backed group has barred the Republic of Congo from the world's legitimate diamond trade, accusing it of blatantly sending millions of dollars in smuggled gems onto the global market. Suspending the West African country was "necessary to safeguard the credibility and integrity" of international efforts to block black-market diamonds from the $60 billion annual diamond business, the group said. The suspension followed a May 31-June 4 mission to Republic of Congo that found that virtually all of the reported 5.2 million carats the country was sending onto the market each year via the Middle East and Europe had been smuggled into Congo from surrounding nations.

The United States and France joined talks Saturday to end a bloody showdown between Republic of Congo President Pascal Lissouba and former Marxist military leader Denis Sassou Nguesso. Meanwhile, envoys from Lissouba and his arch rival agreed to meet in Gabon today for talks on ending the fighting in the Republic of Congo, with deployment of an African force a possibility.

BRAZZAVILLE, Republic of Congo -- President Denis Sassou-Nguesso promised to fight corruption as he was sworn in Wednesday after winning this central African nation's first elections since back-to-back civil wars. International lending organizations have repeatedly complained about the level of corruption in the Republic of Congo, an oil-rich country that borders the much-larger Congo. Republic of Congo was wracked by successive civil wars in the 1990s.

BRAZZAVILLE, Republic of Congo - Police opened fire on looters taking advantage of mayhem in Brazzaville on Friday in the second day of battles between the army and a rogue militia group. Refugees - now numbering in the thousands - continued to flee the Republic of Congo, which borders the former Zaire, now known as Congo. The shooting began when the militia of former Prime Minister Bernard Kolelas was pushed back from the suburbs south of Brazzaville, a military officer said.

BRAZZAVILLE, Republic of Congo - Rebels ambushed an army supply truck filled with local residents outside the capital, killing all 63 people inside, military officials said Saturday. Col. Jean Robert Obargui said the passengers - almost all civilians and many of them children - had been granted a lift by the truck driver, who was delivering supplies to military troops stationed in the region.

BRAZZAVILLE, Republic of Congo - Government forces battling rebels have regained control of a key railway town in the Republic of Congo in fighting that left at least 17 dead, the army reported Monday. Government soldiers last week captured Loutete, the last town under rebel control along a 315-mile railway linking the capital, Brazzaville, to the main port city of Pointe Noire, a senior army official said on condition of anonymity.

GOMA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO -- Crowds of protesters threw rocks outside four United Nations compounds in the eastern part of the nation Monday, venting outrage at what they claimed was a failure by peacekeepers to protect them from rebel forces advancing on the provincial capital of Goma. People are furious that the U.N. peacekeeping force of 17,000 has been unable to protect them from a rebel force that says it is fighting to protect ethnic Tutsis. Cars were damaged and windows shattered at the main U.N. office.

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO -- Rebels from neighboring Uganda kidnapped 90 children in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, and weeks of fighting in the border region have forced 100,000 people to flee their homes, U.N. officials said Monday. The children were taken away from two schools last week during a series of attacks in Orientale province, the United Nations Children's Fund said. Officials identified the attackers as members of Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army rebels. "UNICEF is very concerned that [the children]

UIGE, Angola -- Domingos Pedro was only 12 years old when his father died. The passing was sudden; the cause was a mystery to doctors. But not to Domingos' relatives. They gathered that afternoon in Domingos' mud-clay house, he said, seized him and bound his legs with rope. They tossed the rope over the house's 10-foot-high rafters and hoisted him up until he was suspended headfirst over the hard dirt floor. Then they told him they would cut the rope if he did not confess to murdering his father.

BRAZZAVILLE, Republic of Congo -- Authorities in the Republic of Congo said Tuesday that they still want an ex-rebel leader to take up his new ministerial post despite a gunbattle between the army and former insurgents a day earlier. The violence began after ex-rebel leader Frederic Bitsangou failed to show up Monday in Brazzaville to take up a new post as peace minister. Tensions rose after armed ex-rebels entered the city, ostensibly to provide security for their leader. Government spokesman Alain Akouala said a group of ex-rebels attacked soldiers guarding the capital's Makelekele bridge.

BRAZZAVILLE, Republic of Congo -- A group of Pygmy musicians performing at an annual festival were put up in a zoo by Congolese officials, prompting a protest from a human-rights group. The Pygmies' presence in a tent on the zoo grounds has attracted tourists, who have come to stare and take pictures, the Congolese Observatory for Human Rights said Saturday. Other artists performing at the Festival of Pan-African Music were lodged in hotels. Officials said they offered the indigenous musicians accommodation on the forested zoo grounds so the 10 women, nine men and one baby would feel more at home.

BRAZZAVILLE, Republic of Congo -- U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan flew Sunday to the Republic of Congo, where he said he will discuss Africa's crises with the country's president, the current head of the continent-wide African Union. Annan is to meet today with President Denis Sassou-Nguesso, named this year as the rotating head of the 53-nation bloc helping to mediate African conflicts, including the violence in Sudan's western Darfur region.

BRAZZAVILLE, Republic of Congo -- Automatic gunfire erupted in the capital of the Republic of Congo on Friday as rebels launched their first attack on Brazzaville since restarting this West African nation's civil war in late March. Witnesses said at least five civilians were killed in crossfire as government troops fought to oust the attackers from the southern end of the city. Hundreds of others fled the area. State radio said at least 30 rebels and three army officers had been killed.

KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo -- More than 1,000 militia fighters have joined an army disarmament and reintegration program in a week, a U.N. official said Wednesday. Congo, which recently chose its first freely elected leader in more than 40 years after decades of war and totalitarian rule, has been struggling to create a unified armed force out of militia groups that had been commanded by regional warlords.

KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo -- He struts down the muddy, trash-strewn alley like a model on a catwalk, relishing the stares and double-takes from passers-by. In a country where many survive on 30 cents a day, Papy Mosengo is flashing $1,000 worth of designer clothing on his back, from the Dolce & Gabbana cap and Versace stretch shirt to his spotless white Gucci loafers. "It makes me feel so good to dress this way," the 30-year-old said when asked about such conspicuous consumption in a city plagued by unemployment, crime and homelessness.